Detour of Duty
by ChinamiMorimoto
Summary: HIATUS At the end of their summer together, Jack and Ennis ask each other if they'll be there again the next summer. Ennis says probably not. Jack says probably-unless the army gets him. Of course, he doesn't get drafted, 4 years pass, the story goes on. But what if Jack's life had taken a detour and he had been drafted? How do things change with Vietnam in the picture?
1. Chapter 1

_ Late July, 1963, Brokeback, Wyoming_

_ "Think yer gonna do this again next summer?"_

_ "Well, maybe not. Like I said, me an' Alma's gettin' married in November. So uh I'll try an' get somethin' on a ranch I guess. You?"_

_ "I'll prob'ly go up to my daddy's place, give him a hand through the winter. I might be back. If the army don't get me."_

_ "Well, guess I'll see you around, huh?"_

_ "Right."_

••••••••••••••••••••••••

Private Jonathan Twist bolted awake in his hospital bed, woken by a horrifically vivid dream of the explosion that had put him there. With a heavy sigh he fell back onto his pillow, winced and cursed. His left shoulder throbbed angrily. There were lines of stitches across his back and chest and down his arm. Much of the skin was still raw. He cursed again and closed his eyes.

He'd been in the overcrowded hospital for a week. Two days after he'd gotten there with a score of other men ranging from injured to mutilated by a series of land mines he'd been moved into a small room, little more than a closet, which he had shared with two other men until yesterday. One of the men had died yesterday, drowned in his own blood. Now, Jack shared the room with a young man about his own age with fair hair and freckles by the name of Stanley Bridger. Both of Stanley's legs had been broken when the truck he was riding in had turned over. He and Jack quickly became friends and managed to charm the nurses into sneaking them a couple bottles of whiskey without much trouble. Stanley held one such bottle out to Jack across the gap between their cots. "Same dream?"

"Every time." Jack took the bottle and sat up enough to take a swig from it.

"You seemed to be dreaming something nice before that at least."

Jack shot him a look. "Why you say that?"

Stanley shrugged. "You were mumbling in your sleep. Couldn't understand anything you said but you seemed pleased with it."

"Shut up."

Stanley held his hands up defensively. "Hey, it's okay. Were you dreaming about your girlfriend?"

Jack shook his head and leaned against the wall. "Don't got one to dream 'bout."

"No, come on. I've seen you talk with the nurses. Smooth as you are I refuse to believe you haven't got some girlfriend back home."

"I don't have a girlfriend. Been a pretty long time since I have. Two, three years maybe."

"Wife, then?"

"Stan, I'm only twenty."

"I know eighteen year olds that hurried up and got married quick as they could once they got drafted."

"Point taken but no."

"Fiance?"

"There is not a girl back home waiting for me except my mother."

"I am shocked." Stanley held his hand out for the bottle and took a drink once it was handed to him. He was quiet a while then started to say something but stopped himself. "Never mind."

Jack looked at him. "What were you gonna say?"

"Nothing."

"What was it?" Jack had a suspicion of what it was and hoped he was wrong.

Stanley sighed. "Don't take this the wrong way, it's a stupid thought, but, if you haven't got a girl back home waiting for you, have you got anybody waiting for you? Other than your parents that is."

Jack swallowed. "There's nobody waiting for me." It wasn't a lie.

"Why do I feel like that's not true?"

"Has anyone ever told you yer nosy?"

"Yes."

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose with his good hand. "Whoever told you was right."

Stanley was silent a short time, trying unsuccessfully to scratch an itch under one of his casts. He glanced at Jack then said quietly, "You know, I wouldn't think any less of you if you did have somebody back home that, uh, isn't a girl. Can't really tell since they made me cut my hair but I'm all for free love and all that."

For a long time Jack said nothing. He slid back down into a laying position and took a deep breath. "He's not waiting for me."

"Huh?" Stanley blinked, rather stunned that his little speech had had any effect.

Jack shut his eyes. "He's not waiting for me, he doesn't even know I'm here. I haven't seen him for more than a year. For all I know he wouldn't even care. He's married by now, might even have a kid. Goddamnit, I miss him and I hate myself for it and I'm pretty damn sure I jinxed myself 'cause the last thing I said to him was that I'd probably be around the next summer if the fucking draft didn't get me!"

"Damn..."

Jack scrubbed a hand angrily across his eyes. "I'm such an idiot."

"No you're not. Here, drink." Jack took the bottle. Stanley shrugged. "You're inconveniently in love. Not your fault. It sucks, but no use blaming yourself. God knows you have enough to be miserable about without that."

Jack let out a long breath. "My life would be so much easier if more people thought like you."

"You've never been able to talk about him, have you?"

"No... I haven't."

"I'll listen if you wanna talk more."

"No, no, I, I think I'd better not."

"There was a mass casualty alarm not long before you woke up. The nurses are all gonna be busy for a while. Besides, talking would probably make you feel better. That's why girls get in big groups of friends whenever one of them hooks up or breaks up, eat ice cream, watch old sappy movies. They process their feelings together. Guys could benefit from the same."

"You sound like a psychologist or something."

Stanley shrugged. "I'm a hippy. There's not much difference."

Jack rolled as much as he could to the left to stare at the stripes painted on the wall by the lamp outside the small dirty window near the ceiling. "I don't know what to say."

Stanley lay on his back, eyes closed. "Whatever you think of."

"I miss him."

"I know."

"Wish he knew I was here."

"Why don't you write him?"

"No clue where he lives." Jack closed his eyes. "Dunno what I'd say if I could write him."

"What do you want him to know?"

"Nothing I'm willing to put on paper."

"Like?"

"Most of it I won't tell you and I doubt you'd want to hear."

"Oh, stuff like that." Stanley snorted. "So you've done that?"

"Yeah... I never told him I love him."

"Why not?" Stanley frowned.

"Was scared to. Scared what he'd think if I did. Why the hell am I telling you this?"

"No idea. You can stop if you want."

Jack rolled back to the right. "Do you think I shoulda told him?"

"Maybe."


	2. Chapter 2

Alma walked in from outside, flipping through the mail in her hand. It was mostly bills, a couple ads, a catalog... She paused. "Ennis?"

"Huh?" Ennis paused in his pacing around the small house in a feeble attempt to calm the fussing toddler in his arms.

"You know somebody the name of Jack Twist?" Alma frowned at the looping chicken scratch on the envelope.

Ennis felt his heart skip a beat. "Yeah, we was fishin' buddies. Why?"

"This come for you general delivery. Here, give me Junior, I'll put her down for a nap."

Ennis handed Alma their daughter, took the letter, and wandered outside. He tore open the envelope, not noticing the postage or return address, pulled out the paper inside, and sat on an old crate to read.

_"Ennis,_

_It's been a long time, friend. Would have written before but I didn't know where you were at. Army did get me after all. Don't know how long it'll take this to get to Wyoming from Asia. I'm going home soon, might already be there by the time you get this. Fixing to be sent to Walter Reed Med. Center in D.C, got beat up enough I'm no good to Uncle Sam over here anymore. Send anything you write back to my folks in Lighting Flat. I'll put the address at the bottom._

_Want to meet up once I'm home?_

_Jack"_

Ennis's fingers were trembling by the time he reached the bottom of the letter. Jack had gone to Nam. Ennis's imagination produced far too many terrible things that could have happened to Jack to get him sent home and even worse things that could have happened since he'd penned the letter. With an uncomfortable mix of excitement, wonder, panic, and guilt Ennis went inside and scrawled a quick reply on a spare postcard he found in a drawer:

_"Sure thing. See you soon?_

_Ennis"_

* * *

The first thing Jack's mother did when he got home was feed him. She then scolded her husband not to ask questions Jack probably didn't want to answer right then, cooked more, put what she'd cooked in front of her son, remembered that a postcard had come for him a few days before, and gave it to him. Jack was so tired he had to read the few short words several times to understand them. His heart swelled, he hugged and thanked his mother then went upstairs to his room. He went to his closet, pulled from their hiding place his own bloodstained shirt and the precious memento tucked inside it, and fell into bed, hugging the shirts and the card to his chest.

It took four more postcards to establish when Jack and Ennis would see each other. Unsure what time Jack would get there, Ennis took the day off and spent it pacing the lonely little house on the ranch north of Riverton. Alma watched his fidgeting. "Should I call the Williams, see if they'd mind watching junior for a while so we could take your friend into town for dinner?"

"No, no. Jack, uh, isn't much of a restaurant type." Ennis thought of the dinners of beans still in the can and breakfasts of stone-hard biscuits they'd shared two summers since. "We'll just go get drunk most likely anyway."

Alma pressed her lips into a thin line and said nothing.

Late in the afternoon a truck turned down the rough gravel drive. Ennis sprang to his feet, went to the window, and then out the door. Jack jumped down from his truck and he and Ennis pulled one anther into a fierce embrace, shoulders straining under their shirts. Ennis grabbed Jack by the front of his shirt and dragged him around the corner of the house, hidden from the road by a shed, pressed him to a wall and kissed him, crushingly and desperate. Jack put his hands on Ennis's face and kissed him back.

Inside the house, Alma paused as she walked down the hall to Junior's room, her arms full of laundry, having heard a clamor outside. She went to the window, peeked through the blinds and froze. She turned from the window, her heart suddenly hurt and tangled, unsure what to make of what she'd just seen.

When the two men came inside, Alma was sitting in the living room. At the sound of the door she stood. Jack followed Ennis into the room. They were both rather ruffled.

"Alma, this here's my buddy Jack."

She nodded once. "Sure 'nough."

Jack nodded as well and ran a hand through his hair, holding his hat in the other hand. "Nice to meet you."

Junior appeared at the end of the hallway, presumably having escaped her crib, and called for her mother. With a moment's hesitation Alma went to return the child to her bed for a nap.

Jack looked at Ennis. "You got a kid."

"Yeah, Alma Junior. She's almost two. Can't quite talk yet but she can climb just about everything."

Jack was about to say something in response when Alma returned. She smiled thinly. "Should I make some coffee?"

"No, no, uh," Ennis pat Jack's shoulder in a way that was more or less a thinly veiled effort to push him out the door. "No need, like I said, we're probably just gonna go get drunk." Now Ennis really did push Jack outside and stepped out after him, grabbing his coat and hat as he did. "Dunno how late we'll be out, once we get to talkin' an' all."

Alma pulled a dollar from her dress pocket and opened her mouth, probably to ask Ennis to buy her some cigarets, bring him home sooner.

"You want smokes, there's a pack in the pocket of my blue shirt on the back a the chair in the bedroom." With that, Ennis went to his truck, Jack following. Alma stood silent in the doorway a long moment, then pulled the door to and leaned against it, fingers to her mouth.

Jack and Ennis stopped and bought some sandwiches and a cheap bottle of whiskey, then drove to a seedy motel off the highway headed toward town and got a room. Almost as soon as the door was closed and locked they were in each other's arms, kissing hotly.

"God, I missed you," Jack mumbled against Ennis's neck.

Ennis made a sound of agreement, quickly undid the buttons of Jack's shirt, shoved it down over his shoulders, and stopped, eying the ugly spiderweb scar over Jack's collar bone, shoulder, and upper arm. His expression was unreadable.

"Never mind it." Jack shrugged the rest of the way out of his shirt, the dog tags he still wore out of habit clinking softly around his neck, and kissed Ennis again, pulling him toward the bed. "I missed more than just your company." He nipped sharply. "We clear?"

"Hell yes we clear."

Belt buckles and dog tags sound mostly the same hitting a carpeted floor.

* * *

Jack nuzzled Ennis's hair. Ennis exhaled. He was half laying on Jack's chest, his head resting on the brunet's shoulder, eyes half closed. "So, what exactly did happen to you that messed you up and got you sent home?"

Jack sighed and sat up, gently pushing Ennis off him. He lit a cigaret and was quiet a long time. "Me an' some of the other guys were out. Just walkin' from one camp to another, normal, everyday kind of shit, an' just happened to stumble on a land mine. All things considered, I didn't get hurt to bad. Buddy a mine, he got leg blown off." Jack took a shaky breath. "Guy who stepped on the damn thing, there wasn't a hell of a lot left of him to send home to his folks. With me really the big deal was that I'd wound up with shrapnel in my shoulder. Shrapnel makes doctors nervous, especially if it's anywhere near somethin' important like your heart an' the hospitals they got over there just ain't set up for careful type shit so they packed me off to Walter Reed for surgery. That's that."

Ennis frowned and reached out to touch the ugly starburst of scar on Jack's shoulder. Mostly on instinct, Jack flinched. Ennis frowned more.

"Sorry, reflex. Doesn't hurt anymore, I swear."

Ennis shook his head. "What are they letting shit like this happen for?"

"I swear to God, I don't know. And this is nothing." Jack gestured at his shoulder. "Absolutely nothing. I have seen things, Ennis, I doubt you can even begin to imagine. Men with their arms or legs torn away, skin burned off, insides hanging out. Whole villages burned to the ground. Women covered with burning napalm jumping into rivers to try and keep from burning to death only to drown. And for the life of me I can't tell you why any of it is happening. I don't know how I'm still alive. Every single day I thought I was gonna die; every single fucking day. The only thing I could think to hold on to, the one thing that kept me from just giving up caring what happened to me was you. Knowing you were still here and that I'd never told you so if I died you'd never know... Hell, I didn't even realize that was what I was thinking 'til after I got hurt but it was all along."

"Jack, what the hell are you talking about?"

"I love you, Ennis." Jack ground out his cigaret, blinking hard against the tears that had sprung unbidden to his eyes. "I never told you, that whole summer I never said a word about it, but I love you." He took Ennis's hand in both his own. "I didn't want to die without you knowin' that. I though I was gonna."

Shakily, Ennis pulled his hand away and shook his head. "Jack..."

"Don't you give me any bullshit about how we can't be together, 'cause I know that's what yer about to say. At this point I don't think I believe in impossible. I have seen to many impossible things happen."

"I'm married, Jack."

"I don't care!" Jack got to his feet, paced a few steps then came back and leaned on the mattress. "I need you, Ennis. Stay with her, I don't care, I'm willing to be your dirty secret, but I need you. I've seen my life flash before my eyes enough times to know you're pretty much the only thing in it I can't live without."

"Jack, just, no. There's no way."

"There has to be."

"There's just not."

"A few days. Just take off a few days. We can go camping or something. Figure something out. Even if we just see each other every so often that'd be better than it's been the last couple years. I think I could live with that."

"I dunno, Jack."

"Please, Ennis."

Ennis hesitated. "I dunno about anything else, but I'll see if I can take off a day or two."

Jack smiled, glad for even the smallest of victories, climbed back in bed and kissed Ennis's cheek. "Thank you."

Ennis sighed and reached for the phone.


	3. Chapter 3

Three days later, Jack and Ennis stopped at a bar on their way back from camping. Jack sipped at the beer he'd gotten for barely more than half price with his military I.D. "Guess I'll head back to my folks..."

"Alright." Ennis set his glass down.

"When we gonna see each other again?"

"I dunno, Jack."

"Soon though, yeah?"

"I don't know. We'll see."

"Right." Jack finished his drink.

•••••••••

"Jack, where are you going?" Sue Twist put one hand on her hip. Her son had hardly been home a moment for weeks.

"Drivin' down to Signal, see 'bout gettin' a job with the forest service or something like that again." Jack shrugged and put his hat on. "I'm gonna go crazy just sittin' around and Daddy'd sure as hell'd like me to earn my keep."

"I'll grant you that last part but boy you have not been doin' anything even close to sittin' around. You're out three, four nights a week all in a row sometimes. Driving all over the state it seems. You're making me worried."

Jack sighed. "Look, Mama, I don't mean to worry you. It's just I'd rather not stay still. I've got plenty I don't wanna think about. I'll be home soon as I can."

"Alright." Sue watched in silence as her son went out the door.

••••••••

Jack parked in front of the old trailer and went in, taking his hat off as he did. Sitting at his desk, Joe Aguirre looked up. "Well look what the wind blew in."

"Hey, Mr. Aguirre. Was wonderin' if you needed anybody to work for you this summer."

Aguirre shuffled some papers. "I ain't got any work for you, Twist."

"Nothing?"

Aguirre didn't respond.

"Nothin' anywhere?"

"I got nothin' for _you_."

Jack frowned. "I don't—"

"You boys weren't getting paid to let the dogs babysit the sheep while you stemmed the rose." Aguirre ground out his cigar and nodded at a big pair of binoculars hanging on a nail. "Now get the hell out of my office."

Jack set his jaw and shoulders, put his hat on, and strode out the door, slamming it behind him. He drove to the nearest bar he could find—the one he and Ennis had gone to the first day that summer— and ordered himself a drink. He noticed a young man maybe a year or two younger than himself watching him from the corner of his eye. Jack set his drink down and shot the boy a questioning look. The boy shrugged, looked away, and finished his own drink. Within a few minutes he was watching Jack again. Deliberately Jack rose from his seat and made his way to the restroom. A couple long moments passed and the boy did the same.

••••••••

**A/N: Really sorry but this story is going on hiatus until further notice.**


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